[% setvar title What is Parrot %]

<div id="archive-notice">
    <h3>This file is part of the Archive</h3>
    <p>To see what is currently happening visit <a href="http://www.perl6.org/">http://www.perl6.org/</a></p>
</div>

<h4>
    What's Parrot
</h4>
<p>
    Parrot is a virtual machine used to efficiently execute bytecode for interpreted languages - specifically, Perl 6, although we would like to keep the door open for other languages in the future. As such, Parrot will be the core of the Perl interpreter; it will be the target platform to which Perl 6 code is compiled.
</p>
<h4>
    Where are we
</h4>
<p>
    Parrot source code was released to the world on Monday 10th of September 2001; since then, an army of developers have furiously been hacking away on it. Currently, we have a virtual machine to execute bytecode, an intermediate and an assembly language, a definition for abstract syntax trees, and compilers that translate these three representations to byte code.
</p>
<p>
    A just-in-time compiler and a garbage collector are implemented.
</p>
<p>
    There's a Perl 6 compiler being worked on, <a
    href="http://rakudo.org/">rakudo</a>, which implements variables, control
    flow statements, operators, classes, roles, objects, multi method
    dispatch, regexes, grammars, meta operators and junctions. See the <a
    href="http://rakudo.org/status">status page</a> for a regularly updated
    list of implemented features.
</p>
<h4>
    How to get the code
</h4>

<p>
   To download and build Rakudo, follow <a
   href="http://rakudo.org/how-to-get-rakudo">these instructions</a>.
</p>

<p>
   You can releases and the current source code for parrot <a
   href="http://parrot.org/download">from the Parrot download page</a>.
</p>


<h4>
    How to get involved
</h4>
<p>
    Parrot development takes place on the <a
    href="http://lists.parrot.org/pipermail/parrot-dev/">parrot-dev</a>
    mailing list.
</p>
<p>
    For more information please visit the <a
    href="http://www.parrot.org/dev">developer's section of the official parrot homepage</a>.
</p>
<p>
    For Rakudo, please refer to the <a
    href="http://rakudo.org/developers-guide">Rakudo Developer's Guide</a>.
</p>
<center>
    <p>
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        <small>Buy Parrot Stuff!</small></a>
    </p>
</center>

